Award for concrete flowers

This was the third ceremony of awarding the Kazimir Malevich Award initiated by Polish Institute on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of the artist.

Kyiv-based painter Zhanna Kadyrova became the winner of the prize for this year.

In general, this year there have been several innovations. For the first time in Ukraine a live Internet broadcast of the art event was held. Internet users could watch it on the website of the Radio Svoboda. For the first time the awarding ceremony took place at Mystetsky Arsenal (the host of the ceremony was Oleksii Ananov). For the first time three women artists: Zhanna Kadyrova, Lada Nakonechna, and Lesia Khomenko were selected for the final. For the first time all nominees represented one artistic group R.E.S. (Revolutionary Experimental Space). By the way, Kadyrova, Nakonechna, and Khomenko, in order to emphasize that, came to the ceremony in identical tracksuits with their names embroidered on their backs like a sports team.

Musical and visual performance Kyiv-Malevich was presented at the ceremony by the ArtPole agency (sound by Oleksii Vorsoba and Serhii Kravchenko from Belarusian band PortMone, video by Vadym Ilkov). There was also a screening of the short film Kyiv is Listening to Malevich in which artists and critics spoke about the author of the Black Square standing near houses and on the streets associated with Malevich.

This year the competition was open for artists claimed by 53 institutions from Ukraine (primarily from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Lviv) and also artists from Germany, Poland, and South Korea.

Finalists were selected by Polish-Ukrainian jury, including Stas Volyazlovsky, winner of the Malevich Award in 2010 (Ukraine), Jaroslaw Godun, director of the Polish Institute in Kyiv (head of the jury), Natalia Zhevaho, founder of the educational organization “Cultural Project,” Fabio Cavallucci, director of the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle (Warsaw), Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, curator, chair person of the CSM (Foundation Center for Contemporary Art), Oleksandr Soloviov, deputy director and the chief curator of the Mystetsky Arsenal, Vita Susak, art critic, and Monika Szewczyk, director of the art gallery “Arsenal” in Bialystok.

Zhanna Kadyrova is known primarily through her works from quite ordinary materials: concrete, cement, asphalt (a piece of asphalt from a road can be put on display like a picture), and tiles. Objects that come out as a result include a concrete cone of light from headlights or concrete flowers paved with tiles. These art works seem more like postmodern landscape architecture. In fact, Kadyrova previously received an award for her achievements in the sphere of public art.

This time, Kadyrova received remuneration of 3,000 euros from the Polish Institute in Kyiv, residence in “Ujazdowski Castle,” which will also receive 3,000 euros from the “Cultural Project” (to realize her own project there), and a possibility for solo exhibition in the Small Gallery of Mystetsky Arsenal next year. Nevertheless, it seems that the prize was encouraging for all three nominees, as well as for their friends in R.E.S.